In recent years, a decrease in size and weight, an increase in power output and an increase in efficiency have been required in a permanent magnet motor used in a hybrid car, a hard disk drive, or the like. To realize such a decrease in size and weight, an increase in power output and an increase in efficiency in the permanent magnet motor mentioned above, film-thinning and a further improvement in magnetic performance have been required of a permanent magnet to be buried in the permanent magnet motor.
Here, as a method for manufacturing the permanent magnet used in the permanent magnet motor, a powder sintering method is generally used. In the powder sintering method as used herein, a raw material is first pulverized with a jet mill (dry-milling) to produce a magnet powder. Thereafter, the magnet powder is placed in a mold, and press molded to a desired shape while a magnetic field is applied from the outside. Then, the solid magnet powder molded into the desired shape is sintered at a predetermined temperature (for example, 1100 degrees Celsius in a case of an Nd—Fe—B-based magnet), thereby manufacturing the permanent magnet.
However, when the permanent magnet is manufactured by the above-mentioned powder sintering method, there have been the following problems. That is to say, in the powder sintering method, it is necessary to secure a predetermined porosity in a press-molded magnet powder in order to perform magnetic field orientation. If the magnet powder having the predetermined porosity is sintered, it is difficult to uniformly contract at the time of sintering. Accordingly deformations such as warpage and depressions occur after sintering. Further, since pressure unevenness occurs at the time of pressing the magnet powder, the magnet is formed to have inhomogeneous density after sintering to generate distortion on a surface of the magnet. Conventionally, it has therefore been required to compression-mold the magnet powder to a larger size than that of a desired shape, assuming that the surface of the magnet has some distortion. Then, diamond cutting and polishing operations have been performed after sintering, for alteration to the desired shape. As a result, the number of manufacturing processes increases, and there also is a possibility of deteriorating qualities of the permanent magnet manufactured.
Specifically, when a thin-film magnet is cut out of a bulk body having a larger size as discussed above, material yield is significantly decreased. Further, a problem of large increase in man-hours has also been raised.
Therefore, as a means for solving the above problems, there has been proposed a method of manufacturing a permanent magnet through kneading a magnet powder and a binder, preparing a green sheet, and sintering the green sheet thus prepared (for instance, Japanese Laid-open Patent Application Publication No. 1-150303).